One of the key challenges facing modern industrialized society is the rapid depletion of crude oil, which is the primary source for most transportation fuels and many organic chemicals. The petrochemical industry represents a substantial benefit to human society and the invention and commercialization of alternative sources for petrochemicals is of great importance.
Two categories of organic chemicals that are often produced from petroleum are short chain carboxylic acids and short chain carboxylic esters. These chemicals have a wide range of uses, which include serving as monomers for many types of polymers, paints, coatings, and fragrance sources for perfumes and other commodities.
The use of short chain carboxylic acids as monomers is of particular importance. Substantial efforts have been made in recent years to develop usable polymers from fatty acids bound within triacylglycerides. Processes such as the Soyol process incorporate triacylglyceride fatty acids directly into polymers. One disadvantage of these processes is that the resulting polymers have properties that are different, and in many cases inferior, to existing polymers produced from petrochemical-based monomers.
Surprisingly, very little work has been done to chemically modify triacylglycerides to produce more useful fatty acid-based monomers and other commodity chemicals that are identical, or nearly identical, to existing monomers. Thus, a need exists to provide an alternative source for these chemicals so that demand can be satisfied as the source material, crude oil, diminishes.